Mystery Ahead, Feb 2017 | BIG Reveal | China Chiller | Suspense & Snax

Published: Sun, 02/19/17

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#booknews  #protips  #friends  #reviews  #suggest

This is Mystery Ahead, the newsletter for readers and writers. Together, we find out what makes for a compelling mystery.

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#booknews
The Detective Emilia Cruz books are going audio! I’m pleased to announce that I’ve signed with Tantor Media for audiobooks of the first four Detective Emilia Cruz novels. CLIFF DIVER, HAT DANCE, DIABLO NIGHTS, and KING PESO will debut on Audible and other audiobook outlets later this year. Johanna Parker will narrate.

Johanna is an AudioFile Earphones Award winner and has earned an Audie Award and three Audie nominations. She has received high praise for her work in all genres, including her portrayal of Sookie Stackhouse in Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries series.

COVER REVEAL! Here’s the cover for PACIFIC REAPER, the 5th Detective Emilia Cruz mystery. The release date is now 28 March. Mark your calendars!
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​​​​​​​#protips
Authenticity is often key to a believable mystery and no one does it better than Peter May. He’s the author of the Isle of Lewis Trilogy set in the Hebrides (THE BLACKHOUSE, THE LEWIS MAN, THE CHESSMEN), as well as the China Thriller series including CHINESE WHISPERS reviewed below. Here is our exchange about his books set in China:

Carmen Amato: In the China Thrillers, Li Yan is a Chinese character written for a Western audience. What did you draw from or be inspired by when creating him?
Peter May: Physically Li was based on a young Chinese police officer I met while on my first research trip.  His character was very much shaped by my translator and adviser, Dai Yisheng, who became the model for Uncle Yifu.  Li is very much a product of the generation that grew up through the Cultural Revolution, a victim rather than a perpetrator who developed a strong sense of justice as a result.
 
CA: Beyond the plots, what aspects of the China Thriller series do you feel are most authentic? Most imaginative?
PM: As far as authenticity is concerned, I tried very hard to convey the reality of daily life in the China I was writing about, and never wrote about anywhere I had not been.

Thank you, Peter!

#friends

This week I stumbled upon the great site http://www.booksandspoons.com/, run by reader and chef Anu-Riikka. Half of the site is devoted to book reviews of romantic thriller and suspense novels and the other half has recipes from her kitchen, complete with photos. The books are rated by the spoonful and the recipes are straight comfort food. It’s fun, folksy, and well written.

I love combining books and food—all of the Detective Emilia Cruz novels include a recipe from something served in the book—and I know readers do, too. Anu-Riikka was nice enough to chat with me:

Carmen Amato: I love the premise of your website, http://booksandspoons.com. Tell us how and why you started the site, which now has 14,000 weekly page views, and about your background as a chef.

Anu-Riikka: I found my passion for food, and baking especially, as I was working in a kitchen while in college to get my Bachelor’s degree. A couple of years after graduation I went back to school, and first got my degree in baking and pastry, and then in culinary technology. So I’m both pastry chef and a chef.

I have worked in variety of kitchens including as a baker in a country club, kitchen manager in a conference center, and a catering chef in a large sports arena environment. I’ve had the opportunity to cook and arrange events and private parties for royalty in Scandinavia  and managed hot dog stands in a World Cup sporting event. I have managed all the fresh food departments in gourmet grocery store, and catered private parties for all the life events one could have.

Due to some medical problems I have been partially handicapped, ‘mobility challenged’ as I like to call it, for about four years now. That changed my life drastically. After finding the balance with the new life and treatments, I needed something meaningful to do. So after planning and months of research, I started the website that is now Books & Spoons.

CA: You review many romantic suspense and thriller novels and always give a very well-rounded view of the book, including details about characters, pacing and writing style. I especially loved the way you described Cavanaugh in the Rough as having a “drizzle of clues.” What makes a book stand out for you as a reader? What don’t you like?

A-R: A great story for me has a balance, everything in moderation (yes, even those sexy scenes!) My first choice of genre is romantic suspense, and I love when both the romantic part and the action/suspense are well reasoned, the book has a good foundation that is built upon through the story, has feelings I can relate to, and solid characters I want to cheer for and wish them all the best. I like conflict when it comes outside of the couple, not something they cost themselves.

I like angst, fear, danger, as long as it is balanced with sweetness and a little humor; I need both smiles and sighs. When it comes to the sex scenes I want them to be taking the plot and the couple forward. When it is obvious there’s a sex scene just because of it, I start to skip pages.

I don’t read stories with cheating issues, third party involvement, and a cliffhanger at the end is a deal breaker for me. I want the crimes solved, at least some of them if a series, and if there is something that is left open, please tell me the next book is out soon.

I have gotten a little feedback from readers that I use funny expressions sometimes. I know that, but I speak three languages daily, and it is possible that I take an expression from other language and make a translation that is ‘unique’. I would like to call that my trademark (hahaa)!

CA: Tell us about a favorite suspense novel? What snack you recommend to eat as we read it?

A-R: Oh wow. Nope, I can’t, too many to choose from. I can only give you some of my favorite authors.

The first romantic suspense book that I bought was Sandra Brown’s UNSPEAKABLE–and I was sold on the genre. Then there are Linda Howard’s MR. PERFECT and OPEN SEASON that I have reread countless times. But those are paperbacks before my first Kindle opened a new world to me, with countless stories just seconds away from my fingertips without waiting 3 to 12 weeks for the book order to arrive in Europe.

This year I have already read some excellent romantic suspense stories, one that stands out is AT CLOSE RANGE by Laura Griffin. The perfectly balanced story, in my mind.

When I write in a review that something is nail-biting intense or toe-curling scary, it means I actually did that while I read the book. So when I read suspense, to save my nails, I like to snack on something chewy. Salted licorice is often my first choice. My go-to snack is fresh berries and fruit, but the snack has to be something that doesn’t get books or my Kindle messy.

More books and recipes ahead! Read the rest of the interview here.


#reviews
CHINESE WHISPERS is the sixth novel in author Peter May’s China Thrillers series and should be celebrated with dragons and firecrackers. While May is best known for his Isle of Lewis Trilogy (read my review of THE BLACKHOUSE) this series takes us deep inside today’s Beijing with true-to-his-culture police detective Li Yan.

I met Li Yan and American pathologist Margaret Campbell in THE FIREMAKER, first in the series. Although I rooted for their unlikely relationship, she was a less compelling and occasionally grating character. But the unusual setting and excellent writing stuck with me and I had to give the series another try.

Was I glad I did!

In CHINESE WHISPERS, Li Yan shines brighter; he is stubborn, tireless, and sure of himself. He is a product of the Cultural Revolution in Sichuan Province, which killed his mother and reduced his father to a husk, but also of today’s modern and crowded China. May’s description of Beijing’s urban congestion and political power hierarchy is deeply authentic and endlessly fascinating. Li Yan walks a narrow and personal tightrope; as a Chinese government employee, he cannot marry Margaret with whom he now has a son. At the same time, his career is on a fast upward trajectory with unwelcome notoriety.

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 Beijing skyline at night, courtesy Scott Meltzer

Someone in Beijing is duplicating Jack the Ripper’s gruesome crimes. Exactly the same mutilations, prostitutes, and time between killings; the killer is likely drawing on details in a recent Chinese translation of a seminal work about Jack. Li Yan, as head of Section One, an elite police investigative unit, must handle the case.

At the same time, Li Yan and five other senior cops are treated to a demonstration of a memory-based lie detection technology called MERMER that could potentially replace the polygraph. MERMER’s creator becomes the Beijing Ripper’s next victim, lured to her place of death by a caller purporting to be Li Yan, and the plot thickens with red herrings.

With his personal reputation at stake now more than ever, Li Yan narrows the list of Ripper suspects to the senior officials who were at the MERMER demo. He informs his boss. Suddenly he is removed from his position, Margaret loses her visa, his sister is arrested, and the full weight of China’s cumbersome bureaucracy is set to crush him.

But Li Yan has the loyalty of his subordinates, a love of riddles, and a last card to play. The ending twists and turns like a headless snake and delivers more than one surprise.

Throughout the novel, we’re at street level; dodging cars on Li Yan’s bike, stuck in traffic as police sirens blare, eating steamed pancakes from the corner vendor, aboard the lurching, belching trains, and in the big assembly halls where China’s elite congratulate each other by the thousands.

Even if your only connection to China is a plateful of General Tsao’s Chicken, CHINESE WHISPERS is a mystery you’ll gulp down in one sitting. Highly recommended.

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​​​​​​​#suggest
I received an email from sharp-eyed reader Ronald J. who wrote. “Technically, there is no national identity card as you call the cédula, but what serves as one is called the credencial de elector issued by IFE (Federal Election Commission). This is a valuable piece of identification indeed. You need this or a passport to accomplish almost any financial transaction, though now they generally accept drivers' licenses at banks.”

He is correct. The Mexican national identity system described in my books is fictional; a leap of faith I made some years back when I wrote THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY amid discussion of major legal reforms in Mexico affecting identity, rules of evidence, and jury trials. Several other countries in Latin America already have them, including Panama, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. Most countries in Europe have national identity cards, many with biometric features.

Uneven record keeping in Mexico has led to an inaccurate national cell phone registry. This in turn leads to easy criminal access to untraceable phone and social media communications, i.e. "burner" phones and the like. Criminals in the Detective Emilia Cruz novels frequently take advantage of this situation.
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That's all for this edition of Mystery Ahead! 

​​​​​​​Until next time, keep reading and keep exploring the mystery ahead :)

All the best, Carmen


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